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[GhostDwemer]

I had an idea for a page to put up on the wiki and I want to see what people think. The idea is "style projects," things that aren't necessarily mega projects, but require some futzing around and add detail, realism and style to a fort. Two recent ideas prompted the "style project" concept: gargoyle decorations and a bird coop. The gargoyles are just statues but they go on the tops of walls, they must be scary, and they must be made of the same material as the wall itself. The coop has a main hallway, and each hen gets her own pen/pasture zone with a nest box that has a door that can be locked to conserve her eggs for breeding.

So, these are two style projects, here are a few more ideas
the common idea of colored floor mosaics
everyone goes in a squad with 'uniform replaces clothing' and gets a custom costume"
color coding of levers

Can anyone think of any other types of small detail oriented projects that might fit the category? I don't want to start the page unless it seems like a real and useful category with a few more entries than I've come up with so far.

[Andal]

One of my favorite new pastimes, the idea first given to me by my own Labouredcontrolled's coin-crazy Duke, is a vault with commemorative coins for each year of the fort, made out of whatever metal you have spare at the time. Once a vault is full (don't use bins, so all those lovely coins are on display!), seal it with a floodgate, and dig out another. Few things as dwarfy as rooms full of treasure!

Roads connecting all above ground structures, with bonus points if you make them raised, or line them with statuary. Be sure to designate them for traffic too! It slows the little guys down sometimes, but it looks right proper.

Statuary niches along major hallways, with dwarf-pleasing images. Alternatively, place statues in the niches of the hallway to your mausoleum that either show glorious depictions of dwarven might, or terrifying images of hellish beasts.

A hunter's lodge, with quarters for your animal slaying, food providing chaps, with 1x1 totem stockpiles along the walls to display impressive/exotic kills, a recessed fireplace (wood furnace), small table and chair clusters and a private stockpile of booze (only the best) and fine food. Give it a wood floor for that cozy feel, and maybe intersperse 1x1 stockpiles for tanned skins on the floor, and once a skin is place, forbid it and remove the stockpile, leaving you with animal skin rugs!

I love making fortresses a right and proper home, even if it's impractical or doesn't give any real benefit.

[GhostDwemer]

Cool, these are exactly the kinds of ideas I'm after. Based on the hunter's shack, I just thought of another one I actually use, the fisherman's shack. Entirely enclosed except for an underground entrance, it gives your fisherdwarves a good, safe place to fish. Put in a fishery and a stockpile for only unprocessed fish. This one is actually useful, but it is also stylish. I think we have almost enough ideas for a legitimate wiki page now.

[Chessrook44]

A hunter's lodge... I like that idea... I really like that idea!  I should make one!

Here's three that I made myself...

1: Watchtowers.  Tall towers, 5x5 walls (3x3 inside) with a single stairway heading straight to the top floor, which has glass windows looking out on the surrounding countryside.  Bonus points if you can make a sloped roof.  MORE bonus points if you make it all out of one material. (The White Tower, the Black Tower, etc.)

2: Dwarven Bunker.  Your traps have been breached, your bridge won't close, your military is on the ropes, and your dwarves are hiding.  What do you do?  Retreat to the dwarven bunker and seal the gate!  There is NO way in or out (except a back way out to the outside) and it contains levers to seal off the fortress from the outside world.  Also contains 60 beds, a well, space for some workshops, backup food and ale storage, and some backup stone and wood in storage.  All that's needed to survive in the bunker, or to build a wagon and evacuate... while providing a staging point for future reclamation efforts!  Warning: Alcohol storage difficult due to how your dwarves keep trying to drink the stores.

3: The Divine Quarter.  I'm making this now and it's a HFS of a project.  Eight temples, each one for one of the dwarven gods my dwarves worship.  The central area is about 44x44 squares in size, and each temple is 20 wide by 40 long and must fit the entire structure within that space.  In addition, each one looks unique and different.  The God of Fortresses looks like a fortress, God of Mountains like a natural cave, God of Dawn has a golden wall on the east side with clear glass in front, etc.  The Divine Quarter is five Z-levels high of empty space (some temples are shorter, with arched roofs).  Bonus points if you include a 10x10 mosaic of the God's Symbol on the floor of the temple.

[CapnUrist]

One of my favorite new pastimes, the idea first given to me by my own Labouredcontrolled's coin-crazy Duke, is a vault with commemorative coins for each year of the fort, made out of whatever metal you have spare at the time. Once a vault is full (don't use bins, so all those lovely coins are on display!), seal it with a floodgate, and dig out another. Few things as dwarfy as rooms full of treasure!

I would do this, but I'm too branded by D&D not to want to put a dragon in there too.

"Yeah, that's Smokey. He came around about two years ago, wanting a fight and all, but then he saw the coin vault and just walked in, sat down and told us to close the damned door. We toss a goblin in there every couple of weeks. Haven't had a problem with kobolds ever since!"

In the interest of avoiding commentary without contribution, I've lined main corridors with channels of magma, all feeding from a central "hub" that forms the center of the fortress. Smaller hallways don't need to be decorated such, as they'd make getting about difficult, but any hallway 3 wide or more had it. Even saved my fort from a giantess attack when the giantess went to dodge a fisherdwarf's feeble kick and fell into the trench to burn to a crisp. The idea came from Dragon Age: Origins, from the channels of lava lining the Deep Roads.

[GhostDwemer]

Decorate with magma: awesome.
Watchtowers, also a perfect style project, done it myself.
Divine quarter, perfect, done it myself but I always end up cheaping out and making one 'temple of everybody' because deity statues are so random. These are exactly the types of things I'm looking for, and I think I figured out the difference between style projects and megaprojects: megaprojects require more dwarf-hours and style projects require more player hours than vice versa.

[Andal]

I think another possible distinction between mega and style projects is that the style projects don't necessarily need to take up either types of time, or many resources. For me, a lot of them are simple "What would my dwarves enjoy?" type projects, or things that would be commonsense or practical in a real-world situation even without in-game value.

Such as: A fenced-in outdoor garden, with a pond with a small dock out onto it, and a smooth marble pavilion with tables and chairs underneath designated as a small dining room.  Practical use? Next-to-none. Difficulty/time of construction? Negligible. Character and flavor added to a fortress? A whole lot.

Maybe that's how I see the "style project": adding flavor and vibrancy to a fortress. I build style-projects for a fortress. I build a fortress for a megaproject.

[CapnUrist]

I think another possible distinction between mega and style projects is that the style projects don't necessarily need to take up either types of time, or many resources. For me, a lot of them are simple "What would my dwarves enjoy?" type projects, or things that would be commonsense or practical in a real-world situation even without in-game value.

Such as: A fenced-in outdoor garden, with a pond with a small dock out onto it, and a smooth marble pavilion with tables and chairs underneath designated as a small dining room.  Practical use? Next-to-none. Difficulty/time of construction? Negligible. Character and flavor added to a fortress? A whole lot.

Maybe that's how I see the "style project": adding flavor and vibrancy to a fortress. I build style-projects for a fortress. I build a fortress for a megaproject.

I prefer this distinction as well. A megaproject is something you build for the Ozymandias effect: "Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!" Style projects have more of a "Yeah, that would be nice" flavor, something that, while having no real benefit, gives the fortress life in your own eyes.

[Andal]

Another idea, if you are on an embark with a cliff face, or you build housing towers:

Give each bedroom a small door leading to an outdoor balcony with a table, chair, and a Vertical Bar/Wall Grate railing. You can even give each dwarf their own private dining room this way. You could achieve a similar effect underground, with rooms surrounding a large, hollow central shaft, or carved out of the walls of the Caverns. In the latter case though, you might want to take some anti-flyer precautions like walling the caverns off!

[Chessrook44]

I think another possible distinction between mega and style projects is that the style projects don't necessarily need to take up either types of time, or many resources. For me, a lot of them are simple "What would my dwarves enjoy?" type projects, or things that would be commonsense or practical in a real-world situation even without in-game value.

Such as: A fenced-in outdoor garden, with a pond with a small dock out onto it, and a smooth marble pavilion with tables and chairs underneath designated as a small dining room.  Practical use? Next-to-none. Difficulty/time of construction? Negligible. Character and flavor added to a fortress? A whole lot.

Maybe that's how I see the "style project": adding flavor and vibrancy to a fortress. I build style-projects for a fortress. I build a fortress for a megaproject.

I prefer this distinction as well. A megaproject is something you build for the Ozymandias effect: "Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!" Style projects have more of a "Yeah, that would be nice" flavor, something that, while having no real benefit, gives the fortress life in your own eyes.

On the other hand, some megaprojects CAN be style projects, like the Divine Quarter.  No point, no purpose, just lots of mining, lots of smithing, lots of smoothing, lots of carving, and I even drew out maps on grid paper.  But it's something unique.

[Andal]

I think another possible distinction between mega and style projects is that the style projects don't necessarily need to take up either types of time, or many resources. For me, a lot of them are simple "What would my dwarves enjoy?" type projects, or things that would be commonsense or practical in a real-world situation even without in-game value.
(Example)
Maybe that's how I see the "style project": adding flavor and vibrancy to a fortress. I build style-projects for a fortress. I build a fortress for a megaproject.

I prefer this distinction as well. A megaproject is something you build for the Ozymandias effect: "Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!" Style projects have more of a "Yeah, that would be nice" flavor, something that, while having no real benefit, gives the fortress life in your own eyes.

On the other hand, some megaprojects CAN be style projects, like the Divine Quarter.  No point, no purpose, just lots of mining, lots of smithing, lots of smoothing, lots of carving, and I even drew out maps on grid paper.  But it's something unique.

It's definitely a style project for sure! But megaprojects by definition are writ large, whereas I think it will be important to emphasize on the wiki, if they do get a page, that style projects can be simple and small!

[CapnUrist]

Of course, there's no saying there can be no overlap between the two, or that a megaproject must be purely for overachieving and overpowering. For example, I'm currently constructing two large (30 z-level tall) metal statues to "hold up" the bridges that allow access to Igerzust Stot from the top of the canyons. They are definitely over-the-top and ridiculous, especially since they are to be made primarily of steel with precious metals for color, but I feel they also give a sense for grandness befitting the fortress as it stands now. Is it a style project? Call of opinion, I think.

[GhostDwemer]

All very good stuff, and I see the concept is a decent one, I will put something up on the wiki page tomorrow as it's getting late here. As for overlap between style and mega projects, I think the example given is a great one. A giant bridge is a megaproject. Building realistic supports for it, verging on a style project. Statues as supports for your megaproject bridge: style project. Big or small, style projects are about incorporating elements of role playing. creativity, and artistic expression.

I love this game for not giving us any goals, or "win" conditions except for losing. It's like life, it puts it back on us to find meaning in the chaos.

[Necro910]

I love this game for not giving us any goals, or "win" conditions except for losing. It's like life

Why do you think dwarves are alcoholics?

Necro cancels sleep: Stricken by melancholy. 

[HammerHand]

Closest I came to a style project once - at least that I can remember - was when I embarked on a chasm.  I wanted to set my bedrooms and some workshops up to line the chasm walls, complete with windows so the dwarves within could look out to the other side.  The idea was that, even though lighting isn't IN Dwarf Fortress, I assumed the windows would be lit up.  Bridges would span the divide in various places to allow traffic, of course, and the whole thing would have dining rooms and food storage scattered about.

Efficient?  No.
Time-intensive?  Yes.
Looks cool?  Only in the mind, really.
Awesome?  Absolutely.

I don't remember why I abandoned that fortress.  Probably a new version.  It was back in 40d, obviously.  I actually can't wait for chasms to make a return (I hope they make a return!) just so I can attempt this a second time.